The Train, the Mist, and the Unearthly Child
by Ava Telcontar
Summary: After The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children are having problems. Being normal isn’t as easy as it looks. So maybe a strange encounter on a train is just what the Doctor ordered. Slight crossover with Doctor Who.
1. Chapter 1

The train shuddered to a stop. The impact from this shoved Susan into Edmund who in turn trod heavily on Lucy's foot making her yelp and to trip over Peter.

They disentangled from the knot they found themselves in with much shoving and calling of names. After a moment they were back in their respective seats; Susan staring out the window, Lucy back to reading 'The Golden Key' by George MacDonald, and Edmund trying to persuade Peter that getting out the chess set and being trounced by Edmund was really a good idea.

After the war had finally come to an end they had not returned to London as they had expected but had been shipped out to Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold's as a bomb had landed on their house and other living arrangements had to be made.

Staying with Alberta and Harold who were by themselves as unpleasant as itchy wool socks and cold oatmeal was unfortunate enough but it also meant cousin Eustace…whose company was akin to a thousand paper cuts with lemon thrown on them. As Lucy had once pointed out, "He almost deserves being called Eustace Clarence Scrubb."

At one point Edmund had lost his temper and challenged his exasperating relation to a duel. At first Eustace had laughed but caught the deadly gleam in Edmund's eye and had run in squealing to Aunt Alberta. It was… difficult to behave as a child would."

"Are we going to talk about this?" Peter said finally jostling the others.

Susan sighed and moved her thick glossy locks out of her eyes with a graceful gesture that belonged to a queen and not to a schoolgirl. "Talk about what, Peter?"

"What we are going to do now," he bit out.

"Be children, I suppose," Susan replied airily.

Edmund let out an incredulous laugh, "Be children? Su, we can't be children. We are men and women grown despite our, um, distinct lack of height."

Another sigh. "Of that Edmund, I am all too aware. But, what are we to do? We must play at this. Unless you fancy a stay at a sanitarium?"

"Can't we at least tell Mum and Father the truth?" Lucy chirped hesitantly. She looked hopefully at her siblings.

After a long pause and pointed glances from both Susan and Edmund, Peter answered her, "No." It was said flatly. And it was the same voice that had once issued orders to an army. "And you know full well why." This time the voice was softer.

Lucy nodded unhappily. She knew why. They wouldn't be believed. Frank and Helen Pevensie were good and kind and true…they weren't, however, prone to believe it when their children told them some fantastic tale. It would be the 'fairies in the garden' incident all over again.

Susan slung a comforting arm around her sister's slight shoulders. "Besides, remember what the professor said, that we should only talk about it too others like us who've had the strange and wonderful happen to them."

Lucy nodded unhappily. "But who's like us?"

A sharp knock was heard by the four siblings. The door slid open to reveal a young girl with a fresh pretty face and brown hair in plaits who held a little blond boy by the hand and large suitcase in the other.

"Room for two more?" she asked cheerfully.

Susan nodded. "Come in."

Before the girl could take a step Peter had taken her suitcase that felt like it was loaded with bricks and walked it over to the window.

"Thanks," The girl took this as an invitation and plopped herself down next to Susan. "I'm Nancy Tyler and this is Jamie…my son." It was said with something like defiance.

Peter's eyes widened and he exchanged an incredulous glance with Edmund. She couldn't be any older than him.

Nancy's lips quirked up in a rueful smile. "I'm older than I look."

Lucy grinned at her. "You too? I'm Lucy."

"Peter." He inclined his head in a bow that was almost courtly.

"Edmund." He nodded at her respectfully.

"Susan." She just smiled. Nancy tried not to feel blinded.

A silence descended over the cabin and Nancy waited for the inevitable question about Jamie's father. It didn't seem to be forthcoming.

The Pevensies' could have entire conversations that didn't involve words. As a unit they decided not to inquire about Jamie's father who wasn't, obviously, married to Jamie's mother.

Children simply did not have eyes like that. Nancy wondered where they had come from. They certainly couldn't be local. Her own experiences with the…unlikely had made her hyper aware of any deviation to the norm. Anyone else might not notice the fact that the boys held themselves like some of the soldiers she'd met…relaxed but still dangerous. Or that the girls seemed far too graceful and composed for their age. But she noticed.

Nancy shook her head sharply and wondered if she'd ever be as blind as most people seemed to be ever again.

"Where are you lot from?" Nancy said trying for subtle and failing somewhat. Subtle was not something she excelled at. But she'd give it a go.

"Nar...er Finchley," Peter said tripping over his tongue. His first response had come from the truest instincts of his heart. Finchley. It might be technically correct but it felt like a lie.

Susan gave a sigh. It felt like a lie to her too. Finchley may have been where they were born but it was certainly not where they were truly from. Wait…did that mean they weren't British anymore?

"Shipped out to the country were you?" She probed.

Peter and Edmund exchanged a rueful grin. Nancy was hardly the most skilled interrogator they'd ever had but from the determined glint in her eye she may shape into one of the most persistent.

"Yes," Lucy canted a small eyebrow. "Weren't you?"

Nancy shrugged. "No. Someone might have tried to take Jamie from me; if they found out he was my son and not my brother." She was never lying about her son. Ever again.

"Oh," said Susan the experienced diplomat.

Nancy suddenly smiled, "You missed all the excitement?"

Edmund made a face, "We caught some of the excitement. I've had enough of ordinance dropping thank you."

The young mother let out a chuckle. "Who said I was talking about bombs…although it did fall from the sky."

At that very odd sentence the Pevensies' blinked at her in confusion. What By the Lion's Mane was that supposed to mean?

"Mummy?" said a small voice.

Nancy smiled down at her son, "What is it sweetheart?"

"Is the doctor going to be at the train station?"

"Not the Doctor…but Dr. Constantine will be."

The sentence was enough to make Edmund's head hurt. From the looks of Susan's pained expression it had rubbed her ingrained logic the wrong way.

Peter and Lucy merely looked puzzled. Which wasn't too much of a surprise, they had always been more the take action types where Susan and Edmund had been the more contemplative sorts.

"Dr. Constantine's our guardian," Nancy said like it explained something.

"Ah," said Peter like he understood.

"What fell from the sky that wasn't a bomb?" Lucy asked quietly.

"I could tell ya but I don't think you'd believe it."

This was a challenge and thus had to be answered.

Peter smiled at her. It was both amused and predatory. "Try us."

Nancy held Peter's gaze.

"Are they ever going to blink?" Edmund inquired in fascination.

"Don't know," Susan said with a shrug. "You know what he's like. Put a challenge in front of him and he hangs on. Like a terrier. Doesn't always have to win either…but he's got to try.

Lucy laughed at the sight of the silent contest, "Do you think she was one of the people the professor was talking about?"

"Mummy," Jamie said in his piping voice.

At this both Jamie's mother and Peter blinked ending the contest happily in a draw.

"What is it Jamie?"

"The train's gone all cold. And there's mist coming from under the door." Jamie twisted around so he could look her in the eyes. "Didn't you notice?"

"He's right. Look," Lucy pointed at the sliding train compartment door that was leaking cold air.

"The windows have iced up," Edmund observed.

Peter and Lucy looked at the door with the same exact expression of expectation.

Susan let out a low chuckle, "See what I mean. A terrier. And Lucy's not much better."

"'Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more and all that'," Grinned Edmund rubbing his hands together.

"We are in the room you know?" Peter said rolling his eyes.

"And we can hear you," pointed out Lucy.

Susan smile widened, "We know. So peril awaits us."

"Just like old times," Edmund said with anticipation.

"Oi!" snapped Nancy who was rooting through her suitcase. "In case you lot haven't noticed that mist is cold and you might want to bundle up before you go looking for peril." She pulled out two Jamie sized jumpers, "Arms up." Jamie knowing an order when he heard one stuck out his arms and patiently waited out being jumpered.

"She does have a point," Susan said shrugging herself into a jacket. "That mist feels as cold as a hundred year winter."

"You're right Su, "Always winter and never Christmas," Edmund gave the door a considering look.

"Just like that and unlike," Lucy replied. "The air didn't taste like lightning then."

Nancy who was buttoning up her thick blue wool coat watched this exchange in fascination. They had stopped even sounding like children. They had stopped their rather see though childish pretenses and instead spoke like…well a little like him. Not really. They weren't like him. Except that they held something like his authority.

"Nancy," Peter said thoughtfully. "We'll go and investigate. You and Jamie stay here." This was said as if he expected it to be obeyed.

Nancy raised a brow, "When exactly did you become the boss of me?"

The other Pevensies laughed out loud at Peter who gaped at the girl in consternation.

"'Sides I know from peril. It's more likely to come crashing in on top of ya when you're not moving." She gave Peter a wry grin. "You coming?"

Peter blinked at her. Then he shook his head. Right. Nancy wasn't his subject and wasn't inclined to obey him. He wondered if she was inclined to obey anyone. He rather doubted it.

Carefully and not without difficulty the boys slid the frosted doors opened. The still moving train was filled with an eerie white mist that wafted down the corridor by a non-existent wind.

"Which way do we go up or down?" Susan wondered.

"The mist is coming from down towards the end," Nancy observed.

Peter nodded briskly. "Susan, guard the flank." Susan slipped to the back. "Ed, take point. Lucy stays with Nancy and Jamie." Peter's voice rang with command.

And that was how a bemused Nancy found herself more or less in the middle of what looked like a practiced formation. It was obviously was formed for the express purpose of protecting her and Jamie; although, she wasn't sure what good it would do her to have little Lucy as a bodyguard.

Finchley, her foot.

They wandered down the corridor stopping every now and then to peer into an open cabin to see how its passengers had fared. Mostly they were asleep.

It started with a pinched hissing noise that would start abruptly in irregular intervals and end with a stuttering cough. It grated on the nerves and ears with an irritation born out of its rhythmless knell.

"Listen," Peter quietly. He didn't bother to whisper. Whispers carried. It sounded like running footfalls.

Peter made a slight movement with his hand and Nancy found herself and Jamie pushed to the side of the train's corridor.

It was a boy who came running out of the chilling mist. A small boy about Lucy's age in a small muddy green suit and tie, a small billed cap perched on top his black hair. The dim light in the corridor bounced of the child, on closer inspection they would find that he was covered all over, body and cloths, with a slick plastic-like substance that caught the light. And he was running from something.

"Omph," Edmund managed as the child plowed into him. The boy beat at him with tiny fists trying to get lose. "Calm down," Edmund commanded.

Nancy looked at the quietest of the children in shock. Edmund had a way of fading into the background until he was needed. His voice while still far away from a man's in substance had rang with a timbre that clearly belonged to someone much older.

The child looked up in surprise at the tone and quieted.

"There now. That's better." Edmund's hands rested lightly on the child's frail shoulders. "We won't hurt you."

The child blinked uncertainly at him.

Nancy moved forward and knelt before the child, "Hello. My name's Nancy and this is my little boy Jamie." The others remembered their manners and introduced themselves.

"What are you running from?" Susan asked gently.

The child let out a spool of liquid syllables that hung in the air like soap bubbles.

Lucy sighed in resignation, "And of course he doesn't speak English."

"Where do you think he's from?" Peter asked giving the mist a speculative glace before turning back to the child. It would not do to go off his guard.

"The future maybe," Nancy said thoughtfully. "Or another world."

Four sets of eyes turned toward her. Nancy shrugged, "That's all I've got."

"Peter."

"Edmund."

"Peter."

"Edmund."

"Do they do this a lot?" Nancy said in fascination.

Lucy quirked up an eyebrow, "Have entire conversations with just their names? Yes."

"Right now they're discussing in depth, the situation at hand and what is going to be done about it," interpreted Susan.

"Have they mentioned at all what kind of lie you'll be telling me?" Again four sets of eyes focused on her.

Nancy shrugged. "You lot are about as local as this one. Finchley indeed."

"Not true," protested Lucy. "I was born in Finchley."

Peter considered Nancy's pretty well scrubbed face and the humorous not-going-to-accept-any-nonsense glint in her eye. He sighed. "We were born here. But, it's not where we're from…not anymore."

His sisters and his brother made astonished noises at Peter telling her that much.

He made a face at their astonished expressions, "In case you haven't noticed the train is full of cold eerie mist and Edmund just got knocked off his feet by a very shiny child…"

"I wasn't knocked off my feet," Edmund protested.

Peter continued on ignoring Edmund's commentary. "And is Nancy panicking? No. She has theories about future people and other worlds."

"And she still hasn't told us what fell from the sky that wasn't a bomb," Lucy grumbled.

"She knows we are not quite what we appear to be," Susan mentioned before turning to peer at the fog.

Nancy laughed. Her voice echoing in the train corridor, "Oh, who is?"

"The noise has started again," Susan said apprehensively. "It's louder then before. Louder and therefore closer."

"Run?" Edmund suggested calmly.

"Run." Replied Peter just as calmly.

And with that the Pevensies, the Tylers, and the lost boy begin running up the train corridor to escape the increasingly loud thing in the mist.

Nancy heart hadn't raced so much since the air raids had stopped. She found that she missed that rush of feeling alive that only running for her life could give her. She wondered what that said about her. As much as she appreciated the sharp tug of adrenalin her mother's heart wanted Jamie as far away from the thing in the mist as possible. Who was she kidding? She felt much the same thing for the Pevensies and the shiny child.

It seemed as if they would keep running forever until their hearts gave out. But forever didn't come. The end of the box car came. The child made a noise like a mournful bell.

Nancy acting of sheer instinct pushed Jamie behind her. She tried to do the same to a protesting Lucy.

Susan scooped the child into her arms and he buried his face into her neck.

Edmund stepped backward, though he knew not what approached he would defend the others with his life.

Peter's head lifted and he stared at what he could not see defiantly. He strode toward it confidently.

"He's gone nutters. He has," Nancy murmured.

"Stop." Peter said. It wasn't a request. It was a fact and threats be damned. "You will not have the child. He is under Our protection."

Nancy noted bemusedly that the 'Our' sounded capitalized.

The mist hesitated but continued forward.

"Stop in Aslan's name!"

The name hit the mist like sunlight on a foggy morning; melting it. Whatever was hiding in the mist fled they were left in an empty train corridor.

"What was that name you used?" Nancy demanded.

She stalked up to him reminding him of his mother demanding an answer for something that he wasn't completely sure that he did.

"What name?" He said finally.

"The name you spoke that frightened off the mist. It sounded like music, tasted like chocolate cake and felt like having your son come back from the dead!" Nancy exclaimed.

The Pevensies tore themselves from Nancy's passionate voice and red face to stare at Jamie who was amusing himself by making faces off the shiny child's reflective surface.

"Aslan. The name is Aslan." Lucy said seriously. "You might know him…but with a different name."

Nancy blinked trying to figure that one out. "Who is he? The way that thing went he can't be safe."

Susan let out a laugh, "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

Nancy's face became thoughtful at this description. "I've known someone who was good but wasn't safe…Do you think it's coming back for Jack?"

There was a short silence at her abrupt change in topic.

"Jack?" Edmund asked.

Nancy's lips quirked up, "We can't keep calling him the shiny child. It's rude."

"Why Jack in particular?" Susan asked thoughtfully. "And not George, or Sam or Alistair; Seems a specific name choice."

"Knew a Jack once, a conman who was a better man than who he thought. Saved a lot of people he did."

Lucy wrinkled her nose, "Did Jack the conman have anything to do with the thing that fell from the sky that wasn't a bomb?"

"Yeah. It was all his fault." Nancy wrinkled her nose back at the smaller girl. Susan was right. Just like a terrier.

"Anything that's chased 'Jack' through a gateway probably won't give up so easily," Peter murmured.

"So, let me see if I got this," said Edmund thoughtfully. "We have an unknown enemy, no weapons and no one in authority is going to listen to us because we're too short to know anything."

"That does seem to be our dilemma," replied Peter.

"So what if we don't know what we're up against. So what if we don't have any weapons. Always what we have taken in hand, the same we have achieved," Susan said her carriage and manner all but screaming royal born.

Nancy forced down the sudden inexplicable urge to curtsy.

"Who are you people?" Nancy said in exasperation.

"Peter, High King of Narnia."

"Okay."

The Pevensies stared at her in complete and utter astonishment.

"You believe me," Peter said his eyes wide with astonishment. "You believe me just like that?"

Nancy laughed at him, "The thing that fell from the sky that wasn't a bomb? It was an ambulance from another world. There were zombie people running around with gas-mask heads calling for their mummies, and the sky was full of Germans dropping bombs on me. Tell me. Do you think there's anything left I couldn't believe?"


	2. Chapter 2

"Zombie people with gas-masked heads," Susan said slowly, as if tasting the words.

Nancy nodded. "According to the Doctor the nano-whatsists thought that was what a human was supposed to look like."

Edmund rubbed his eyes. "And if this…Doctor," he imitated Nancy and capitalized the title, "hadn't told the nano-things what they were doing wrong…"

"Then your majesties would have been really surprised when you came back through the wardrobe."

After a short discussion they decided that going back to their cabin was out of the question for the moment. As they didn't want to loiter about in the corridor they had made their way to the dining car. A dining car that was empty. That fact wasn't heartening but at least they had some privacy.

Nancy had listened patiently to their story. It was fantastic and unbelievable. Which was exactly why she believed it— if someone was going to make up a story it would have gaps and would not be so detailed. Also, it explained so much about the Pevensies. If they seemed older then their years it was because they were older.

Although, she wondered why this Aslan of theirs seemed so familiar? It was like the memory of a song heard from another room; she could hear the melody but the lyrics were just out of reach.

The royal four, on the other hand, were astounded that this kind of thing happened here on Earth. In London!

"The bit I can't quite wrap my head around is that Jack fellow riding the bomb in a magic beam of light," said Peter in a daze.

"Who is the Doctor?" Lucy said with a puzzled frown. Something there sounded recognizable…like something she'd read in the royal archives.

Nancy shrugged, "According to Rose he's a traveler in space and time. Don't know how he manages that. He wouldn't tell me much about himself…although he _did _talk a lot." About every conceivable subject under the sun. "They wanted to leave right away, swan off after the day was saved. So I bullied them in staying for a cuppa."

"And Rose was from fifty years in the future?" Lucy grinned a bit at Nancy's eye roll. During the time they'd taken explaining Narnia she'd continually interrupted and peppered them with questions. Turnabout was fair play.

Nancy's smile grew as she remembered the vivacious blond, "Yeah, it was weird. Here I am in the middle of a military camp with a strange girl with a Union Jack all over her chest and I was only surprised she wasn't German."

"And this sort of thing happens a lot?" Asked Susan.

Nancy gave a shrug. "According to the Doctor the Earth is just about always in peril." At the Pevensies' off looks Nancy broke into a peal of giggles. "If it helps I think that the Doctor is one of the people that sort it out. Though according to Rose sometimes 'e starts it…" She paused thoughtfully at this less then reassuring statement.

Lucy let out a snort. "Yeah, we know someone like that."

"Lucy!" exclaimed Susan in a horrified voice.

"What? You know it's true."

"While this is all very interesting, how does it help our current situation?" interjected Edmund.

"The problem is that little Jack doesn't speak English." said Lucy. "If he did we could just ask him about the thing in the mist."

Susan sighed. Lucy was right. They were at something of an impasse. It was difficult to fix a problem if you did not know what it was.

"It's a Vul' nash' ic assassin," Jamie said in his quiet voice.

Nancy stared at her son. "How do you know that?"

"Shiny Jack told me," Jamie said and rolled his eyes.

All eyes traveled to Jamie and Jack and back again. Jack had spent the entire debriefing (that's what Peter called it anyway) poking doubtfully at a muffin. Now the mysterious little boy was looking at Jamie with a hint of hope on his normally impassive face.

"Did he say why the assassin was after him?" asked Susan gently.

Jamie nodded seriously. "His Mummy is a famous scientist who made a way to sidle into other Rooms/Worlds. The bad people want it so they can go to other worlds and steal stuff, but his mummy hid it. That made the bad people mad so they took shiny Jack to get his mummy to give it to them, and then he got away." He stumbled a bit on the big words.

"Spare 'Oom," whispered Lucy.

Peter rubbed his chin reflectively. Besides being the most that he'd heard Jamie say for the length of their short acquaintance, it wasn't the best news. Still, assassins were something they'd dealt with before.

"How do you know what he's saying?" Nancy asked.

"I just do," Jamie rolled his eyes, as if to say, grownups can be thick sometimes.

Edmund bit his lip. "Jamie, does Jack know what the assassin can do? Its abilities and weapons and such." He clearly remembered having to fight off several assassins from Calormen who had strange and deadly powers. It had been nightmarish of Dream Isle proportions.

Jamie tilted his head and listened. "Shiny Jack says the Vul' nash' ic is from Room/World Blue-5.2. It can make mist that can put life forms into a cr-cr-yogenic state…"

"Hold up," said Lucy. "What's a cryogenic state?"

"Frozen sleep," Jamie said, still concentrating shiny Jack's words. "It can halt all kinds of machinery and it has limited ability to hear thoughts."

"That's not good," Lucy murmured into her teacup.

"Shiny Jack wants to get onto the top of this snaky transport," Jamie said.

"Snaky transport…the top of the train?" Susan supposed. "Whatever for?"

Jamie rubbed his eyes. "So, he can go from here to there. From this Room/World to another; Jack says he's sorry. He never wanted to put anyone else in danger."

"From here to there…Jamie, what did Jack's mum do with her sidle thing?" Nancy asked.

"Now he's being quiet," Jamie stated.

Edmund looked at Nancy, who nodded.

"Jack," said Edmund, addressing himself to the shiny child directly. "Your mum gave you the…er, device? Didn't she?"

Jamie wrinkled his nose. "Still quiet."

"Well, that answers that," said Susan with some asperity.

There was a small silence that bounced off the sides of the larger silence that engulfed the train. The smaller silence popped like a balloon as a steady, methodical booming shattered the larger silence.

Jack jerked to his shiny feet and began to shout cymbals and ringing bells.

"He says the assassin's back," Jamie said helpfully.

Peter unfolded himself and stood. "So we gathered."

"Mummy, what's an assassin?" Jamie said with a frown. A great deal of the proceeding conversation had gone over his head and he didn't like not understanding things.

"I'll tell you when you're older."

"You said that when I asked where babies come from!"

Lucy stood, barely concealing giggles.

Nancy looked down her nose at the diminutive queen. "Just wait until you have children, your majesty. Then we'll see who's laughing."

Jack let out a shriek like a falling German bomb and tried to run down the car in the opposite direction of the booming.

With a few fast strides Peter caught up with him and nimbly grabbed him up. The last thing they needed was to have to chase the child down.

"They're coming!" shouted Jamie. "And they know where his mummy put it!"

"They?" said Nancy, sounding greatly disturbed.

"That does rather make it sound like there are now more than one," Edmund muttered.

Lucy marched over and pulled sharp on the emergency break pulley.

The subsequent momentum slammed into them as the train screeched to a stop.

"Lucy! You might have warned us." Susan clambered to her feet

"Why did ya do that?" Nancy pulled a protesting Jamie into her arms.

"Jack said he needed to get to the top of the 'snaky transport,' remember?" Lucy airily replied.

"Climbing to the top of a moving train could have been problematic," Edmund said agreed. His head tilted. "They're getting closer."

The booming was echoed. And with each clang came more mist that chilled the air and frosted the windows.

Climbing up the side of a train at three in the morning during an English winter is difficult enough but if your skin is made of plastic then it's just that much harder. Jack kept slipping of the rungs.

Peter groaned and tossed Jack onto his shoulders and began climbing. He'd tried to get Nancy to take Jamie and get off the blasted train but instead she just looked at him like he was stupid and then she ignored him.

Edmund was no help; he'd just said something about mothers outranking kings. Peter had to admit that Ed had a point…at least he was certain that Helen Pevensie outranked him and his siblings. He was less sure about other people's mothers.

Soon they were all standing on top of the dining car. Nancy had herded Jack, Jamie and a protesting Lucy away from the sides.

From the top of the train you could see that one end was dark metal and that the other was stark white.

"Do you suppose they died quickly?" Susan asked with a shiver as she gazed on the slowly approaching white frost.

"Who?" Nancy said, valiantly keeping down the squeak she wanted to release for the sake of the children.

"The people in that part of the train; I don't want them to have suffered."

"Maybe they're not dead," Nancy ventured after a moment. "Remember what Jack said about its powers?"

Susan blinked at her.

"It can make people fall into a frozen sleep. They could be just sleeping, yeah?" Nancy said, patting the other girl on the arm.

Susan's eyes lit up. "Do you really think...?"

"I have hopes," Nancy said carefully.

The queen's lips quirked up. "Sometimes that's all we have."

Jack in the meantime was rooting through his seemingly endless pockets and a pile of their contents littered the roof around his feet. There was a wooden horse, a pile of coins (if coins were translucent and blue), a wind up sail boat, a broken silver device (that would in the future send a scientist named Toshiko Sato into spasms of joy), a yellow towel, a copy of a comic book with a picture of a blue 1950's Police Box on the cover, a flier advertising 'Zathura! Not just an amusement park; It's an adventure!' that was immediately snatched up by the wind off the moors and a pink plush naked rodent doll.

Lucy just stared. The child's never-ending pockets reminded her of a story her cousin Jane told her about a remarkable nanny who had came and went with the wind. Maybe it really happened. Who was she to disbelieve?

A moment later Jack fished out what looked like a yoyo from his pocket with a look of satisfaction; it resembled a yoyo in that it was two round bits and a piece of string, only here the two round bits were made up of honey golden crystal that glowed and the piece of string a thread that glittered in moonlight.

"Why it's lovely," said Susan in some surprise.

"But why is it a yoyo?" asked Peter. "If I were going to make a key into other worlds a yoyo isn't the first shape I'd think of."

Edmund rolled his eyes. "Would a ring be a better shape?"

"No," said Peter after casting his memories back to Professor Kirke telling them the story of himself as a boy and his friend Polly's journey into the beginnings of Narnia. Rings were referenced. "No. Yoyos are good."

Edmund snorted in response to this.

Peter let out a hiss as the car directly in front of them frosted over. If he were anyone else he might have cursed.

"Jack, I wouldn't want to hurry you but…could ya hurry?" Said Nancy looking nervously at the ice-covered car.

Jack slipped the looped end of the yoyo string around his middle finger and began to move the yoyo up and down its strings. Each slow roll made the dark countryside light up brighter than day.

The ominous booming was coming closer and each breath felt like a knife of ice in the lungs.

The dining car was shaking you could make this active voice "the dining car shook with each discordant thump"--it makes us feel the action more strongly with each discordant thump. The metal underneath them was slowly being eaten up by hoarfrost.

Jack had switched from simple yoyo patterns to something that looked like a cat's cradle made of strings of light.

Lucy yanked Jamie into her arms and tried not to slip as the train car shook like a boat in a storm.

The five children who were not children stared into the ever changing pattern that Jack was weaving into the sky with a wonder they never lost. They could see moments from other worlds, a flickering picture show without an end:

_a young woman swan diving off a tower, a small Japanese man with arms outstretched in victory (Yatta!), a wedding (on a pirate ship, in a storm), six circles bisected by crosses being held up against a great tree, a sword wielding man being hit by lightning (a beheaded corpse at his feet), a child sized man with furry feet holding out a gold ring to a woman with flowing blond hair, a boy and a winged unicorn riding the wind through time, a man with a newspaper, three powerful sisters, a silver ankh and the beating of wings, a small green creature hitting a farm boy with a stick, 'The time war ends' said a girl who glowed like the sun… _

"Rose?" Nancy stepped forward automatically at the sight of Rose, the girl who had given her back hope when all seemed lost lit up from within.

Another step towards the image of a girl she'd known for less then a day but would be a friend for a lifetime.

The dangers was no longer near, it was here. In a fog three indistinct figures hovered, backlit by the light of Jack's yoyo.

Lucy clung to Jamie who whimpered and pressed his face into her stomach.

Jack let out a keening wail as the fog converged on them.

Nancy stepped on a translucent blue coin and slipped. Jamie's shrill yell merged with Jack's wail and the ever-present booming.

Peter acted on pure instinct and all but leapt over the side of the train and just managed to snag Nancy's ankle. Edmund pounced and grabbed onto Peter's legs and Susan grabbed onto him.

As the world grew black around her, Nancy heard four voices yelling a name into the cold dark.

When Nancy awoke she found herself under a blossoming apple tree, in a field covered with a multitude of flowers. Jamie was pressed to her side, a content smile on his small face. She pushed herself up on her elbows and squinted at the lazy afternoon sunlight. She was warm! Nancy had thought she'd be cold forever.

She ruffled her son's hair happily and let out a content sigh as she caught sight of a small pile of slowly awaking royalty.

It took some time to pull together the energy to get to her feet and a bit more to get Jamie to his.

Susan was the first Pevensie to awaken and to stand up. Su was surprised but pleased when she found herself in an enthusiastic hug from Nancy. The others who rose found themselves in a similar position.

"Are you all aright? Where are we?" Nancy babbled.

Peter let out a chuckle. "We're fine. And not in England." The High King looked from the emerald green fields to the amethyst shadowed mountains up to the azure sky. "No. Not England. It's far too real."

Nancy looking around found that he was right. This place was solid. It made the world of her birth look as though it were made of transparent tissue paper with pictures painted on them in water colors. This was a real place.

"So the yoyo worked?" Nancy queried.

Edmund answered. "Seems so."

"But where is this?" Nancy said in wonder.

"You never stop questioning do you?" Susan said with a smile.

Nancy blinked at her. "How else will I learn anything? Anyway, where is Jack?" A hint of worry tinged her voice.

They looked around the meadow, not finding any sign of the child.

Lucy climbed up a pile of rocks. "There he is! He's talking to Aslan!" This last was said with such great delight that Nancy felt her own heart leap.

"Aslan!" Susan let out a joyous laugh and spontaneously hugged Edmund and sloppily kissed his cheek. At this Edmund pushed her away and rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand.

Nancy turned and looked in the direction that had so transfixed the attention of the others and her jaw dropped open.

Sure enough, there was Jack, even shinier in the light of the sun. Sauntering lazily at his side was…a lion.

A huge lion. This wasn't just a lion. It was a Lion.

"It's a lion!" Shouted Nancy as every maternal instinct she possessed screamed in her ear. She put a foot forward and started to run only to find that Peter had grabbed a hold of an arm and pulled her back.

"Yes. That's Aslan. He's a lion." Peter said calmly as if this were the most sane, rational thing in the world.

"Aslan's a lion?" Nancy said after a moment's contemplation.

"Yes," said Susan struggling not to laugh at the dumfounded expression on Nancy's face. Throughout this whole adventure not one time had the dauntless girl lost her nonchalant air…so this was kind of nice. "We didn't mention?"

"No. I think I would remember that…" Nancy's voice trailed off as Jack and the lion who was Aslan came before them. Her eyes widened. How could she have possibly had mistaken this person for a mere beast.

Nancy found herself staring into tawny eyes that looked through her skin and into the secret places of her heart. He knew all about her, Nancy knew without asking, all her shadows and secrets and yet…he loved her anyway. The same boundless, relentless love that she had for Jamie, Aslan had for her."

"Well met and welcome to my country," said a voice like thunder and sunlight.

"Come forward Peter and Edmund, sons of Adam." The boys walked forward and knelt.

"Sire," breathed Edmund with reverence.

"Even in the world of your birth without the trappings of royalty, and in the guise of children you neither faltered nor hesitated when an innocent needed your help. I am well pleased."

The two kings smiled at his approval.

"Susan and Lucy, daughters of Eve, come forward."

The girls stepped forward. Susan curtsied and Lucy all but leaped forward to hug the greatest of beasts around the neck.

"Oh, Aslan!"

Nancy blinked at that. No wonder they called her the Valiant.

"With you also, am I pleased, you kept faith when others may have despaired."

Both girls beamed at this.

Nancy wondered happened to people who didn't please him and immediately decided not to think about it.

"Nancy, daughter of Eve, come forward." Nancy started and gripped Jamie's had a bit tighter then necessary. For the first time in her life she felt overwhelmed with shyness. She came forward pulling Jamie along. She attempted to curtsey; it came out as an awkward bow over crossed ankles.

Aslan rumbled out a laugh. "Fear not, little mother I will not harm you."

"You're a lion."

He laughed again. "I am."

Jamie just smiled. "Big kitty." And he patted Aslan on the nose.

Nancy wondered how exactly she was to talk to him. Asking him about the weather seemed trite and well politics and religion were out…

Susan took in Nancy's befuddled expression with concern. Maybe she should have a moment to compose herself.

"Aslan, what happened with the assassins and the mist and all that?" Susan asked.

Aslan looked from Susan to Nancy with an expression that suggested that he knew exactly what she was doing and didn't at all mind.

"With their prey gone they returned once more to their own world."

"As for young…" The name spoken here sounded like a tune played on a panpipe. "He will be returned to his mother."

Nancy smiled. "So…everybody lives."

Aslan let out a resounding laugh. "Yes! Everybody lives!"

Nancy laughed and for the first time since she'd become acquainted with the Pevensies, it was untinged with irony or sarcasm. Pure joy. Her giggles trailed off as something occurred to her.

"Sir, do you know the Doctor?" Nancy asked.

"Very well." The tone in Aslan's voice sounded as if he were speaking fondly of an old friend who was frequently exasperating.

"Thought so," Nancy said with a nod. "Wait!" The young woman's eyes widened as she remembered why she'd fallen off the train. "Rose! I saw Rose and she was glowing…oh I hope she's alright."

"Peace, wolf cub. Rose is so _alive_! And is living a fantastic life…and not as lost as she thinks."

"Why did ya call me a wolf cub?" Nancy said wondering a bit about the part about Rose being lost. She decided not to worry about it if Aslan wasn't going to.

Aslan smiled. "Didn't you take Rose's name as your own?"

Nancy nodded. She did take the last name Tyler as her own. She certainly didn't want to keep her father's name.

Aslan indicated 'There you go' with a slight nod of his majestic head.

Nancy didn't see how that explained it.

"Oh, and Captain Jack Harkness…the last I saw of him he was riding off onto of a bomb in a magic beam of light. That couldn't have been safe."

Aslan snorted a bit indelicately, "Time's Scoundrel is well enough; a pirate and a good man."

Peter wondered at that description. He had met many pirates and none could be depicted as good men. Seemed a bit contradictory that.

"Everybody lives," Nancy said holding the words to her heart.

"Now, my dears it is time you returned."

"Already?" Susan said plaintively.

"But, Aslan we've missed you. We miss Mr. Tumnus and the beavers and …" said Lucy folding her hands together.

"And Phillip," added Edmund.

"And Roonwit," Peter put in.

"I know. And you are missed as well. But you must go on."

"And be children?" Susan muttered in frustration.

"Just be," suggested Aslan. "Don't pretend to be anything you're not. Remember; once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a king or queen."

"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." Edmund recited with satisfaction.

"Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy," At the sound of their names spoken by _that _voice they looked up and focused their attention on the greatest of kings. "Know that I am always with you."

"Nancy, mother of Jamie, mother of many," said Aslan. "You will have a fantastic life. You will do great things and your children will follow in your footprints."

Nancy smiled uncertainly. Children? She only had the one!

The Pevensies and the Tylers made their goodbyes to the unearthly child who had set them on their strange little adventure. The little boy hugged them all fiercely in return. Someday when he was old he'd tell of the two kings and two queens who with the help of a great lady and her little boy had saved him.

And then it was time to go.

"Fare you well."

"Not goodbye?" asked Susan.

"Never goodbye," Aslan said gently.


	3. Epilogue One

It was twelve days exactly before Torchwood come calling.

Nancy had warned them. After her adventure with the Doctor, they had descended on Dr. Constantine's hospital en mass, interrogating everyone who'd been involved.

They had been most interested in the Doctor. Nancy was not cooperative. He'd saved Jamie and that was enough for her.

A Dr. Gregory Harper (the grandfather of one Owen Harper) had been most intrusive when it came to examining all the people the nano-genes had healed.

The old lady whose leg grew back had slapped him for getting fresh.

---

Edmund and Susan had a lot of fun talking the Torchwood interrogators into verbal knots.

Peter and Lucy were a great deal less patient.

As for the Torchwood agents they were befuddled and more than a little intimidated. The Pevensie children were unsettling; they worked together like a synchronized unit. Also, they couldn't possibly have the level of education they seemed to have.

Frank and Helen Pevensie were cornered but all they could say was that they too were puzzled. The children had come back different. But, then the war had changed most people.

In order to make Torchwood _go away_ already they gave up the objects that had come out of Jack's impressive pockets. Susan gave up the broken silver device with an ungracious sniff, she had been sure that she was on to a way to make the thing work…whatever it actually did. Peter forked over a pile of translucent blue coins (although he did keep four). Lucy gave up the wooden horse that could come to life with a pout. And at last Edmund gave over the wind up sailing ship that could sail on the air.

The Pevensie children didn't mention the softer than silk sunshine yellow towel that they planned to give to their mother as a birthday gift.

Nor did they mention the other two items: Jamie had claimed the plush pink rodent doll and Nancy…well the comic book was about the Doctor. She read it aloud on their way back to London. It had talked about TARDIS's, the Eye of Harmony, homicidal pepper pots and regeneration. The story itself was about the Seventh Doctor and a girl named Ace who liked to blow things up. It was quite brilliant!

When they left the entire Pevensie clan was vastly relieved. Until the children were called up to give some kind of explanation; Peter could only conclude that Edmund was right. Mothers really do out rank kings.


	4. Epilogue Two

(Post The LastBattle)

Susan could not look away from the twisted remains of the train. Even after the bodies were removed she just couldn't take her eyes off of the thing that had taken her family from her.

The whole family was getting together for Eustace and Jill's engagement party.

The whole family including Professor Kirke and Miss. Plummer; the whole family not including Eustace's parents Harold and Alberta…they didn't approve of Jill in the slightest.

Susan was going to meet up with them at the family's summer cottage in Bath after the last of her college exams.

How could this have happened? Susan just couldn't except accept that the last memories of her siblings were of hurtful words and arguments. She had accused them of living in fairy tales.

Susan if asked couldn't really tell you why all the Narnia talk made her so angry. And why her heart felt like it was breaking every time it was mentioned

"Susan?" A voice said. The voice sounded as if it were out of breath.

Susan turned, her eyes burning with yet unshed tears.

A young woman stood twisting her hands together. She looked vaguely familiar; maybe she and Susan had gone to school together.

"Yes." Susan's voice felt like sandpaper on the ear.

"My name's Nancy. Nancy Tyler. We met once…after the air raids you and your bothers and sister were coming home from the country?"

"I…remember we met on a train." Susan paused.

"Do you remember then?"

"I…not much," Susan admitted.

Nancy smiled weakly." I came as soon as I heard about the accident."

"Why? We knew you less then a day." Susan asked her face a sculpture in sorrow.

"You were my friends. No matter how long I knew you," Nancy said softly. Mustering up her courage Nancy swiftly enfolded Susan in a hug. Ignoring the younger woman's protests. Sometimes a person might want to be left alone but what they needed was to be grabbed and held on to.

Susan stood stone still in Nancy's arms. The cold that had felt like…always winter and never Christmas (where did that come from?) that had encompassed Susan's heart since the accident began to shake apart at the warmth from this almost stranger.

Memories of Nancy crept forward grew clearer in Susan's mind. Nancy was bossy and argument and sarcastic and wonderfully kind. She was a mum. Her son's name was Jamie.

Susan melted. She cried for her parents who would never hold her again. For her brothers; Peter, who'd been her pillar of strength (my captain, my king! cried her heart), Edmund, who was her lodestone—a man whose moral compass always seemed to point seemed to be set in the right direction. And Lucy. Her dear and darling, and oh so valiant little sister, despite the great gulf that had grown between them, Lucy, her best friend.

She cried for the Professor and Miss Plummer. And wondered for the millionth time why those too had never gotten married, they were so clearly in love.

She cried for her cousin Eustace and his Jill and the life together they never got to start.

Susan even cried for Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold and missed reconciliations. No parent deserved this.

Nancy walked the crying young woman over to a bench and the two sat with Susan's head resting on Nancy's shoulder.

Nancy had lived a strange life. The oddness that touched her life during the Blitz never did go away. She never could close her eyes to what was really there. So when the dreams came, dreams of crashing metal, dead loved ones and a voice commanding Nancy to 'Seek out the lost Queen,' she paid attention. And so here she was.

"Oh, Nancy what am I going to do? They're gone!" whimpered Susan.

"Have hope." Nancy smiled against Susan's hair. "Someone very wise once told me that hope is sometimes all we have." She pulled away from Susan and looked into her eyes, "You need to remember who you are and where you're from."

"Susan Pevensie. Finchley."

Nancy had to smile at that flat and utterly dry retort. Good. Some of that old wit and fire coming back .

"I'm going to tell you a story. So pay attention," replied Nancy just as tartly.

Susan's mouth tilted up at one corner.

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids…"


End file.
